Greetings,
I’m back with my 4th TR now, this time for my trip to AMS in WBC. This was my third trip to AMS, but my first since I’ve been a premium member, and able to post TR’s. This time though, the opportunity arose for me to get on the 744. Prior to this trip, I’ve never flown the 744, this flight was long overdue.
To save myself from repeating myself on all my opinions and what nots of TATL WBC out of DTW, please refer to my CDGTRhere.
The weather in DTW sucked that day, so the quality of the ground pics isn’t the greatest. I really love this time of day a lot of heavies on the ground for the NW, AF, LH, and KL Euro flights, plus the 744’s departing to Asia (and now AMS!).
Well, this journey begins with me arriving at DTW at 1545 for the 1720 departure. Once again, security was a breeze and the gate area pretty vacant for a full 744 departing in about 1 hour. I approached the counter, to find the agents extremely busy. They told me a CO flight cancelled, and I’d have to wait to get a seat assignment, shit.
This time of year there are 5 744 departures out of DTW. 2xNRT, KIX, NGO, and AMS.

My Equipment to AMS

75A

After a nervous 5 minutes, they called me up to the counter where I heard the greatest words known to man: “would you like lower deck or upper deck”? I even got a window and an open seat next to me.
Taken right before preboarding, doesn’t look like enough to fill the 744.

In a few minutes, boarding started and I was on by 1730. Since we had to wait for the CO flight, I had a good hour long sit before push. When I arrived at the seat, I already found the pillow, blanket, menu, headset, and amenity kit; while the crew distributed champagne, orange juice, or Budweiser. After the initial preflight beverage, and dinner orders were taken, the crew disappeared into the galley until we were airborne. I also noticed that they didn’t pass out newspapers, but the papers were stacked in an obvious spot, so I just grabbed one.

For being over 18 years old this 744 was pretty clean inside. The WBC cabin was in good shape, the same as on the 330’s. Due to the small overhead bins on the upper deck, I had to stow my bag on the lower deck. A plus to sitting on the upper deck is the large storage bin next to the window seat, it comes in very handy to stow your backpack as well as the pillow, blanket, ect., because there is limited space under the seat due to the large IFE box.

Tell me this isn’t the most depressing front page you’ve ever seen. I want to know how the hell Kwame even got elected for a second term.

Seat 80K, the last seat on the plane.

Large unused space behind 80K

The laptop powerport, I wish they’d put these on every aircraft without PTV’s

Here’s the amenity kit, it is what it is. The only thing I find useful is the toothbrush, and maybe the pen. The pillow is comfy, the headset is good, but since I’m 6’4”, the blanket is a bit too small.

Despite having to wait for the CO flight to arrive, we only pushed about 15 mins late, taxi was a quick one to 22L, and we were off.

Neighboring 333

KL 777

Construction on the new terminal moving along nicely, the Barry terminal on life support. Out with the old, in with the new.

Once we were cruising, hot towels were passed out, and the dinner service began. I went for the chicken, it wasn’t the best, the chicken was really dry, and about half of the rice wasn’t cooked, the veggies didn’t really have any taste to them. The dessert was the best, that ice cream was excellent as was the fruit. The salad and bread were also good.
These napkins are T-A-C-K-Y

This flight had no trivia , so Instead I watched The Bank Job, which was pretty good, and be kind rewind, which was so stupid that I stopped watching halfway through and attempted to go to sleep, but before sleep, I decided to take a walk through the main cabin to take a pic or two. I walked back took a picture, and on my way back a kid probably 5 or 6 was sitting in the middle section at an exit row (door 3). I’m walking toward the front, about 5 feet from door 3, and this kid jumps up, runs over to the door, and starts pulling on the door handle!!!! It was dark in the cabin and a lot of people were sleeping, including the people seated next to the door, but I swear besides me and the kid’s mom who pulled her away from the door, no one seemed to care. I know it’s pretty much impossible for a door to open at cruise altitude, but my heart literally skipped a beat, and the adrenaline was flowing, so much for falling asleep right away, that kept me up for another hour!
The main cabin shot that could’ve cost me my life.

They left the monitor on the upper deck like this the whole flight

After getting a few hours of sleep, The sun woke me up, and breakfast was served.
If you thought the TATL breakfast out of DTW was inadequate before, here it is without the yogurt. This is not filling enough, please NW give your premium pax more food.

Trays were collected, we began the decent.
Once in the Netherlands, we had a long taxi to the gate. Good thing, otherwise I may not have been able to see this beauty.
Compared to the MD-11

Are we in AMS or DTW?

I would’ve liked to go in the A-zone and get some better pics, but the purser was up there having a conversation with an older couple, I figured I better not interrupt.

The ship that carried me across the pond.

After deplaning I had about an hour and a half to kill in the AMS terminal, I wanted to visit lounge 25, but would’ve had to go through passport control so…..I ended up visiting lounge 41 near the E concourse where I arrived. They didn’t have any hot food out for breakfast, just yogurt, and cereal mainly, good enough I was hungry. Although the yogurt tasted like sour cream, I also noticed that in the CDG lounge also, I guess I’ll stick to the cereal next time I go to Europe.

After eating I took advantage of the free wifi for a few minutes than did some spotting.
How do you access this area near concourse E? I saw people up there.

Is this one of the airlines Borat flew on?

KL 77W, taken from the road.

A few random pics from AMS.

Only in AMS
Didn’t expect to see a Chevelle in AMS.

Before I knew it, it was time to head back to the airport. Due to the loads and snowball effect of missed connections in AMS. I found that NW 39 is the best NW flight to get back to DTW from AMS.

With some extra time in Schiphol, I really wanted to check out the model shop, but at this hour it was closed

Check in was smooth at the KL kiosks, and there was a 2 minute line at passport control.

One thing I don’t understand about AMS(the E concourse that is) is the individual security at each gate, I know all the x-ray equipment is expensive, and when the gate isn’t being used, the equipment is idle. Is there a reason for this method, I’ve never seen this at any other airport, it just seems wasteful to me. Plus the line for an international flight is usually about 20 minutes long at peak check in time, because there are usually only one or two scanners for 300+ people. I don’t understand.

Once through the questioning point at the gate, the friendly KL agent checked me in, and once through security, I took a seat in the gate area. E 24 is one of the better gates, it’s a long walk, but the waiting area has a nice view. I missed the preboarding call, so I just sat around taking pictures while everyone else stood in line to get on the plane.

N666US, the ship that brought me here two days ago.

NW 332, don’t get to see these in DTW.

Once the line died down, I boarded, and took my seat.

A few minutes after I got on, the door was closed, and we were off. My seatmate was an American Businessman, he told me he’s taken hundreds of flights on every airline and CO was his favorite. He said NW was barely comparable. He also said his company paid $5400 for his flight in WBC. He was a pretty decent guy, we got to talking about the industry, and he kept telling me how he goes out of his way to fly CO whenever possible and how NW is at the bottom of the food chain in terms of service.

Once again we leveled off, hot towels were passed out, and breakfast was served. Everything, especially the pancakes tasted good, except the oranges, the oranges out of AMS always taste sour.

Once breakfast was over, water was passed out, and the F/A’s kindly asked everyone in WBC to close their window shades.

Drillbit Taylor was the only movie I watched on this flight, which was pretty good. I wish they would have kept 10000BC in the system from JUN, but oh well trivia worked on this flight

I love the snack basket they put in the forward galley on the westbound TATL flights, here is some of the stuff from the basket.

Soon enough, the F/A’s began the arrival service. I really wish NW would get rid of this dish, the bread was like a sponge and the meat and cheese were like rubber. The cake was good though. My seatmate didn’t even touch the dish; he passed me the cake and asked for more cereal.

On decent.
Over Canada

Selfridge ANGB

DET City Airport

Landing was smooth with a quick taxi to the gate, customs was a breeze, this was the first time they didn’t search me for drugs. I mean how suspicious does a 17 year old travelling by himself look coming back to Detroit from spending one night in Amsterdam?

Conclusion
The Quality of WBC has gone down some from my last trip in WBC. It is still a comfortable and enjoyable way to fly, but the Quality and Quantity of the food needs improvement. The 744 and the 330 have the same product in J, but the 330 is light-years ahead of the 744 in Y. I would recommend the upper deck of the 744 to anyone, mainly due to the convenient storage cabinet next to every upper deck window seat.

My guess is that NW is trying to put all overweight Americans on a diet to save fuel!

Quoting CAP2008 (Thread starter):One thing I don’t understand about AMS(the E concourse that is) is the individual security at each gate, I know all the x-ray equipment is expensive, and when the gate isn’t being used, the equipment is idle. Is there a reason for this method, I’ve never seen this at any other airport, it just seems wasteful to me. Plus the line for an international flight is usually about 20 minutes long at peak check in time, because there are usually only one or two scanners for 300+ people. I don’t understand.

I always hated that too. My guess is that they figured this way the check-in and customs process would be quicker and the inconvenience to the passengers would be spread over 2 instances. Not a good idea. Also don't like that AMS does not have an express lane for customs.

Gotta love typographical errors on the breakfast menu.
Snacks from OUT skybreak basket?
Reeeeal classy, NW. Hint- spell check can't catch words that are spelled correctly, but are the WRONG WORD. Maybe next time have someone proofread, and you can fix OUR mistake!

Anyhow, I'm taking that very flight at the end of August- NW 68, DTW-AMS.
I'm disappointed, as a result, to hear your seatmate refer to NW as the dead last contender.
I'm glad CO is first, as they're my preferred airline. But I booked this itinerary (in coach, so I guess I'll be fighting off kids that are trying to escape!) because of the HUGE number of EQM's I'm earning... the booking classes were quite high (full Y transatlantic) but for just a few extra Dollars. And, I also wanted to fly on the 747 again, my first time being KLM just this past April, LAX-AMS. Nice flight, but really uncomfortable seats after three hours, much less 10+.

Quoting Burnsie28 (Reply 5):Didn't take long for bandwith to get exceeded for your photobucket shots

Yeah, and I wonder whether, in the future, you could post reports like this in multiple segments. Or, maybe, post a link to photos, rather than put them in your thread. I ask because I've even got DSL (not cable, I know, but certainly not dial-up!!) and my connection was timing out for this page before all photos could load!

I guess all the pics should be visible on aug. 15, according to the e-mail I got from photobucket. I don't like posting links, I'd just rather see the pics in the thread, more convenient to read the TR that way. My CUNTR pics will be posted via Imageshack.

Quoting CAP2008 (Reply 8):I don't like posting links, I'd just rather see the pics in the thread

I don't like links either, but if you could split it up, or only post SOME of the photos, and link to others, ANYTHING you can do to give access to your great pics AND allow me to load this page before it times out... would be helpful.

The recent NWTR's I had read seemed to indicate NW had a reasonable J product, not so sure after reading this, I was pretty unimpressed to be honest - meal service seems especially poor on both of these flights.

Quoting BA319-131 (Reply 11):The recent NWTR's I had read seemed to indicate NW had a reasonable J product, not so sure after reading this, I was pretty unimpressed to be honest - meal service seems especially poor on both of these flights.

I just flew DTW-LHR and back in WBC a couple days ago, and that experience (catering) was noticeably better. This AMS trip was probably the two least enjoyable (not saying bad) experiences in WBC, out of 11 WBC flights, I (hopefully) guess this trip was just an outlier. I'll post a TR for the LHR trip in around a week or so, whenever I have time.

Quoting BA319-131 (Reply 11):- What? Budweiser, how odd and what a rubbish beer, has no taste!

- I've been in this very situation. I searched for about 30mins all around AMS to find the signs/access to this 'Panorama Terrace'. I eventually surrendered, and asked the information desk. Turns out, this is only accessible landside, and I'd have to leave the airport to access it. Kinda sucks for transfering spotters at AMS, which is usually the group I come under.

I'm flying AMS-DTW on the 744 in WBC in October, and I'm really looking forward to it! Glad I'm not in Y though; NW and KL seriously need to rethink passenger comfort on their 747 metal.

And another brief question: What camera do you use? It seems to provide excellent detail, and I'd love to know which manufacturer/model.